Archive for May 26th, 2009

Almost in the tragic irony department: London Mayor Boris Johnson (and his Transport Department head), scouting the capital (helmeted) on two wheels for the best cycle routes ahead of next summer’s big “Super Highways” cycling initiative, is nearly taken out by a rogue lorry (which itself had hit a Ford Mondeo, “catapulting” it towards the group). More here and here.

As Ben Porter notes, the event “seems to bring several issues together that are of concern at the moment in London. In addition to the irony of this incident occurring while the cycling group were scouting safe cycle routes there are growing worries about the dangers of HGVs in London, particularly in east London with the increase in construction traffic for the 2012 Olympics. There have been three women killed by lorries in recent weeks in the capital.” (see here and here).

Ben also notes the truck’s doors seem to have flown open after it crossed a speed table at an inappropriate velocity.

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.